indulge me while I present my personal
"Intelligence Estimate" for this pending crisis. It may surprise you
just how much you might find plausible

it appears that we
are seeing the players (re)positioning themselves for the worst case
scenario. We know that Russia, France and Germany opposed our 2003
invasion of Iraq. Not falling into the delusion
spun by Bush on Saddam Hussein's alleged WMD arsenal, these
countries sought to preserve their lucrative trade relationships with
Iraq. In addition to these three countries, we know that China,
India and Pakistan also have current trade relationships with Iran.
Both Russia
and China
have negotiated sales of a defensive missile shield with Iran, with
only pressure from the U.S. delaying the sale (not to be thwarted, Iran
has since declared that as a result they will construct their own
defensive missile shield). Brazil and
Turkey are defiantly strengthening ties as well

with a pre-emptive strike
on Iran being pushed by Israel, Christian
Zionists in the U.S., and neo-cons
protecting the interests of their financial elite and transnational
corporation masters,
there is a world of
hurt about to be unleashed, to cascade
down to effect all people of the Middle East; with the profound
consequence to oil prices to which no nation is immune

Middle East pundits, at least the ones
with some objectivity and not the unscrupulous ones seeking to
manipulate public perception to garner support for military "solutions"
(an oxymoron), are trying to bring some measure of rationality to the
issue

if
either Israel, the U.S., or both attack Iran; especially given:

how thin our military is stretched
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the globe

the simmering desire for retribution for
their many injustices
in the region (including protracted economic sanctions
and the hardships such sanctions have imposed on local populations)

we will see Muslim Arabs
and Persians,
and Christian Syrians
all finding common
cause. Puppet regimes in Saudi Arabia and
Egypt,
long despised
by their suppressed populations, will be forced to realign
or risk being swept away by the storm of indignation
as a rising sense of imminent personal risk triggers their instincts
for self-preservation. A case of "it's every man for himself" and their
former sponsors, the puppeteers, will find themselves holding empty
strings

whatever diminished estimation the U.S.
has of Iranian military
capability, the fervency which comes from defending one's own home
and family from invasion, and the occupation (of which Palestine,
Iraq and Afghanistan all stand as stark examples), will be dismissed
only at our own peril.
Combined with the solidarity among
Shia who have since been relatively quiet in the region:

I do not imagine Israel surviving intact,
the memory
of their brutality
a stern warning which will serve to prohibit any reemergence of a
Zionist entity in the near future (i.e.; their instigating a
conflagration encompassing the entire Middle East will be remembered as
a rabid act)

I see the U.S. embroiled to the point that
we will emerge a shadow of our former selves in terms of economic or
military strength, and opportunistic rivals will be stalking us like
predatory cats

I see the world economic crises deepen as
oil supplies suffer significant and possibly prolonged disruption, with
the collapse of the most vulnerable nations with consequent civil
disorder, famine, and disease

I see the alliances which are now being
realigned as predictive of what new aggregation of power will rise from
the fire and ashes

perhaps Turkey
is following a premonition of what new power will fill the space
created by the U.S.' demise as a global economic power. Perhaps these
speculations are indeed consistent with the designs of those elites
whose affiliations
transcend merely political entities, but who nevertheless stand
poised to resume their game of domination using whatever is left
standing

in any case, we are for the second time in
my life, an executive order away from regressing civilization by a
millennium; the first was the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Let us hope
that sane
minds once more prevail